The People v. Jonathan Ludarac (Abridged)

Transcript-Interrogation of Kimberly Nash

Transcript-Interrogation of Kimberly Nash

Interrogating Officer: Sgt. Eric Renfield

Location: 4581 Apple Tree Rd.-Home of Kimberly Nash

Date: 11/10/2012

Time: 4:10 PM

Renfield: I'm going to record our conversation if that's alright.

Nash: That's fine, I guess. What is this about, officer?

Renfield: Do you recognize this book? [Shows evidence item 5-1]

Nash: Oh my god. Where did you get that?

Renfield: Do you recognize it?

Nash: Yes, of course. It's mine. Where did you get it?

Renfield: It has been implicated in a criminal case.

Nash: It has been implicated in a lot more than that. Tell me where you got it.

Renfield: A local shop owner purchased it from a yard sale here several months ago.

Nash: Oh god, that was a mistake. This was supposed to go to the museum with the rest of it.

Renfield: The Museum?

Nash: This book was in a box full of Nazi paraphernalia that I received after my great-uncle died.

Renfield: Your great-uncle was a Nazi?

Nash: Apparently. I hadn't seen him for maybe a decade, but I got a box with a letter that said he had kicked the bucket and that this was the stuff that he left me. I opened it up, and it was jammed with Nazi paraphernalia. There was a uniform and a picture of my great-uncle shaking hands with Heinrich Himmler among other unsavory items.

Renfield: That's a hell of a discovery.

Nash: And not one that I wanted to make. I started doing some research on the internet and found that my great-uncle- his name was Karl Schlitz by the way- was an accountant of sorts.

Renfield: An accountant?

Nash: God, you know, it feels good to tell someone this. I never really talk about it. My husband knows, but I can tell that talking about it makes him uncomfortable.

Renfield: Is your husband home?

Nash: No, he's off with his friends right now.

Renfield: Do you have any children?

Nash: No, but I'm three months pregnant.

Renfield: Congratulations.

Nash: Thank you.

Renfield: Anyway, you were saying that he was an accountant.

Nash: Right, he worked in the death camps, but he wasn't counting money. My great-uncle was in charge of counting each of the people killed in the camp. He kept records of race, religion, sexuality, handicaps, everything the Nazis wanted to eradicate. Karl Schlitz documented the Nazis, well this seems like the wrong word, but progress. He wrote all their names and information in that book.

Renfield: This book? The book in this evidence bag?

Nash: Unfortunately, yes. I found out a great deal of this from some letters that he wrote. They ended up in one of my cousin's hands when he died. I guess my great uncle just sort of gave out all of his possessions randomly.

Renfield: He wrote about all of this in letters?

Nash: In horrible detail. He explained that he wrote the names in pencil because by the time he reached the end of the book, he had already reported the names at the front to his superiors, and they had mostly smudged away leaving a grey sheen. He called it staub des toten mannes in German. It translates to 'dead man's dust.' He could just keep writing more and more names in it endlessly. God only knows how many he actually wrote. You know, while I'm on this train of thought, would you care to know who had that book before Karl Schlitz?